


And When His Playing Began (I Held My Breath)

by springsnow



Series: Sehnsucht [3]
Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Caring, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Memories, Protectiveness, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 10:56:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20081038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/springsnow/pseuds/springsnow
Summary: Walter knows Marcel.





	And When His Playing Began (I Held My Breath)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while eating extra strong spearmints and listening to a backwards edit of "Once in a Lifetime" by the Talking Heads on repeat. I like the idea of Walter, big bastard heel he may be (in NXT UK, anyway), being just as protective of his stablemates as Trent is of his. I just have a weakness for big men being soft. This is set directly after _While Summer Lasts_ and so, importantly, before Walter turned Trent into paste at Download. Tagging it as Marcel/Walter is a bit of a cheat, I admit, but it's at the very least implicit in the text. Title taken, translated and tweaked from _Klavier_ by Rammstein.

Walter knows Marcel.

He knows him well enough not to expect an explanation when Marcel returns to them from his little sojourn with fresh bruises adorning his face and neck and dried blood tracking from his nose to upper lip. He knows him well enough not to be surprised when he turns away, silent, from Fabian and Alex when they ask him what happened. He knows him well enough to be allowed to take him to the bathroom—away from the other two; Marcel’s pride won’t let them see him like this for long—and wipe his face clean with a damp washcloth, taking care not to put too much pressure on the blossoming bruises. He knows him well enough to be allowed to gently cup his face when the tears welling up in his eyes finally spill over and to softly brush them away.

He knows most people would be surprised, even amused at the tenderness, even Fabian and Alex, but when it’s just him and Marcel, it’s different. They’ve done this before, when they were still young, when every beatdown he got in the ring left Marcel fragile and shaken. _It’s OK to lose matches, you know,_ Walter had said to him once, gently wiping the blood off his face with a piece of wet tissue in the men’s room of some dingy club somewhere in Dresden. _There’s no shame in it. You did a good job out there._

And Marcel had smiled, his kittenish face lighting up through his tears and bruises, and he’d hugged Walter and said a very quiet _thank you_, voice muffled by Walter’s t-shirt.

There’s none of that now. Marcel won’t even look at him, eyes instead fixing on the floor or the ceiling or the wall when he has to move his head for Walter to clean his jaw or chin. He doesn’t say anything, not even as the tears finally get to be too much and a thick sob escapes his throat and he crumples into Walter’s arms, crying helplessly.

Walter knows Marcel well enough to know that he’s not going to tell him who did this, or why, but he doesn’t need to. He knows already.

And he knows exactly what he’s going to do to him.


End file.
